‘And broke the boulders?’
‘Yes.’
‘That accounts for it; she is thinking of the boulders. Why didn’t you tell her I got hurt, too?’
‘I did. I told her what you told me to tell her: that you were now but an incoherent series of compound fractures extending from your scalp-lock to your heels, and that the comminuted projections caused you to look like a hat-rack.’
‘And it was after this that she wished me to remember that there was nothing the matter with me?’
‘Those were her words.’
‘I do not understand it. I believe she has not diagnosed the case with sufficient care. Did she look like a person who was theorising, or did she look like one who has fallen off precipices herself and brings to the aid of abstract science the confirmation of personal experience?’
‘Bitte?’
It was too large a contract for the Stubenmadchen’s vocabulary; she couldn’t call the hand. I allowed the subject to rest there, and asked for something to eat and smoke, and something hot to drink, and a basket to pile my legs in, and another capable person to come and help me curse the time away; but I could not have any of these things.
‘Why?’